


Recovery

by headrush100



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Comfort/Angst, Comforting Bond, Dom/sub Undertones, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heroic Q, Hopefully not as dark as it sounds, Hurt Q, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, Q Whump, Trigger warning for description of a fictional terrorist attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-30 02:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20806844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/headrush100/pseuds/headrush100
Summary: When Q tries to hide away after being caught up in an attack on a coffee shop around the corner from Six, a friend comes looking for him.





	Recovery

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy this fic, my first in the Bond fandom. Please note the warning that it contains descriptions and mentions of a fictional incident of domestic terrorism in London. I tried not to be too graphic, but it is there.

Q sank back in his chair, and went rigid with pain. He eased forward to lean on the desk again, but that only made it worse. Jenny would be home by now. Medical had seen to her injuries and called her boyfriend to collect her. She’d remembered to text him when she got home, and had even signed off ‘xxx’, which was extremely kind of her, all things considered. He would send her flowers tomorrow. And the next time she wanted coffee, he would get it. For the next five years. No, ten years. He wondered if she liked teddy bears, those ones with cutesy ‘get well’ messages. He could send one of those too, although technically she wasn’t sick, but they didn’t have messages for this situation. Still, he should…

He startled at a light rap on the door. 

The handle rattled.

‘Q?’

His stomach lurched. The very last person he was up to dealing with right now. He hit the button on his phone that killed the lights, and held his breath, as though Bond could hear it through the reinforced door.

Firmer raps now.

‘I know you’re in there.’

Could be a bluff. 

‘Open the door.’

He closed his eyes for a long moment.

‘I saw the light go off. You have five seconds to open this door.’

He cast an eye about the small office’s furnishings, wondering which would be the best to hide behind.

There was a faint beep, a ker-chunk, and the door opened.

‘You disappoint me, 007,’ he said. ‘I thought you were going to break the door down, at least. Or perhaps a semi-controlled explosion is more your style.’

Bond leaned against the doorframe, but his posture couldn’t be mistaken for relaxed. ‘Override code.’

Carefully schooling his reaction to the unprecedented gentleness of Bond’s tone, he swallowed to steady his voice. ‘Who gave you that?’

‘That would be telling. What’s this,’ he gestured to the dark room, ‘about?’

‘What brings you here?’ said Q, scanning the array of screens in front of him. ‘Has something else happened?’

‘No. Suspects are in custody, everyone is doing their jobs. Including you, who most definitely shouldn’t be, tonight. I thought they sent you home.’

‘I must have missed that email.’

‘Q. Why are you here?’

‘It’s my office.’ 

There was a momentary pause before Bond said, ‘Do you know what time it is?’

‘I know what time it is in every major city around the world,’ he said. ‘And quite a few small ones.’

‘Nobody likes a smartarse.’

Q’s retort died on his lips, because he did, in fact, like James. Very much. Far more than he could ever let on, and having him standing there in his rolled-up shirtsleeves, silhouetted against the fluorescent light, was both thrilling and profoundly uncomfortable.

The more so when Bond entered the room and leaned against Q’s desk, perilously close to the tiny transmitter he’d been working on before... Before. 

Q’s hands fluttered. ‘Don’t sit on tha-’ He flinched as Bond captured his left wrist, noting the scraped and swollen knuckles, dark red on the pale skin. Carefully, he turned Q’s hand so that his bloodstained palm was facing up. 

‘Where’s this from?’

‘Nothing major.’ 

‘Glad you’re so sure about that, Doctor Q.’

Strong, cool fingers slid under his shirt cuff and pressed firmly into his pulse point. Q flinched, but Bond held on. His gaze shifted from Q’s shaking hand to his eyes, but Q looked away.

‘Sorry,’ said Bond. ‘Did that hurt?’

‘No. Just wasn’t expecting it.’

Bond gave a nod, and resumed counting.

Well. This was awkward.

‘I’m fine.’

‘So I see.’ Bond released him. ‘I’m going to put the light on, all right?’

The light was on before he could he could reply, and Bond was back on the desk, perching closer this time, his calf pressing against Q’s thigh. He reached down and slid Q’s glasses off, setting them carefully on the desk. He touched the back of his hand to Q’s clammy cheek, then put two fingers under Q’s chin and one on top of his head, tipping it back. 

Q squirmed. 

‘Look at me.’ Bond’s scrutiny was unwavering, as was his frown.

He tried to clear his mind and do as he was told, but it was difficult to maintain eye contact, his focus sliding away every couple of seconds, fearful of what Bond might see there. 

The moment Bond let go, he shoved the office chair back on its castors fast and hard enough to bang into the bookcase behind him, and just managed to swallow a scream. He breathed for a second, then stood up, swaying. He grabbed hold of the door in as casual a manner as possible, signalling his visitor that their meeting was at an end.

Bond took a step towards him, stopping when Q took a corresponding step back. ‘I spoke to Jenny before she was released from Medical. You’re in shock, Q, and you’re injured. The medics tried to find you at the scene, but you’d cleared off. Have you seen a doctor?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

The words got all tangled up between his brain and his mouth, and in the end, he just shook his head. ‘Because I didn’t need to. There was a coffee shop full of people needing help, Bond, and I wasn’t in any pain. It didn’t make sense.’ That had come soon enough when he’d barely made it to the park bench round the corner from the attack. A lot of things hadn’t been making sense, then.

‘You weren’t in pain then because of the adrenaline, and your concern for Jenny. But you’re clearly feeling it now.’

‘I’m fine, 007.’ He lowered himself back into the chair, noticing, as Bond clearly had, that the backrest was soaked with blood. Now he felt lightheaded.

Bond stared at him. He took a pencil from the pot on the desk and held it out between them. ‘What’ll happen if I drop this?’

‘The point will break?’

‘It won’t explode?’

He had to smile. ‘No.’

The pencil hit the floor. Bond looked at him. ‘Pick it up.’

‘I’ll get it tomorrow.’

‘You’ll get it now, or you’re going to Medical.’

‘I’m not going to Medical, and you can’t make me, Bond, I’m not a child.’

Bond squatted down and clamped a hand around each of the chair’s armrests, physically trapping Q as surely as he pinned him with a flat stare. ‘Is that a challenge, Quartermaster?’

Oh, God. ‘Why are you even doing this?’ said Q. ‘What do you care?’

‘That’s not an answer,’ said Bond.

‘Neither is that,’ said Q, feeling very much not up to this.

‘Very well,’ said Bond. ‘As I said, I spoke to Jenny, earlier. She told me that you had asked her to go to the Coffee Alchemist specifically because their coffee is better than the quote unquote, ‘brown water’ in our refectory.’ Off Q’s miserable nod, he continued. ‘The queue was nearly out the door when she arrived, so she was near the entrance when the van rammed the shopfront and she was hit with flying glass.’

Q’s chest constricted, and he nodded. It felt like it happened seconds ago, and he should be able to go back and change things. To have not been so bloody selfish and got coffee from upstairs like everyone else.

‘You do know, Q, that what happened to Jenny wasn’t your fault.’

He gave a perfunctory nod. 

‘You don’t agree?’

‘She wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t asked her to go.’

‘You’re talking as though you weren’t there, too. And nearer to the point of entry, if Jenny was correct.’

He blinked, forcing himself back to that awful moment. The indescribably horrendous impact; the screams, the shocking violence of the vehicle breaching brick, concrete, and glass. Bodies, debris, and furniture flung everywhere. His initial confusion and panic, and then, almost instantly, his training kicking in. ‘I… Yes. Probably.’

‘No, definitely. You saved a little boy, pulling him out of the way just in time. Josh Dhillon is alive because of you. His parents want to thank you, by the way. The trauma’s playing tricks on your memory. Some degree of dissociation is quite common.’ Bond’s eyes had not left Q’s. ‘Do you mind if I have a feel of your head?’

Q let out a private exhalation of amusement, but wasn’t up to innuendo. ‘No.’ He closed his eyes, and let Bond’s fingers run through his hair and over his scalp.

‘Any pain?’

‘No. I don’t think I hit my head.’

The side of Bond’s mouth twitched as he gently poked and prodded. ‘Pardon me for not considering you an entirely reliable source at the moment. Do you remember punching the driver of the van?’

He glanced down at his throbbing knuckles. ‘Not clearly.’

‘You were damn lucky to have got away with that,’ Bond said, gently. 

Q shivered. ‘He was already stunned by the crash. I was just trying to keep him that way until help arrived.’

‘Even so. Do you remember coming back here afterwards?’

‘Yes, mostly.’ He blinked, frowning. ‘Did I give a statement at the scene?’

‘You did. It wasn’t entirely coherent, but we can revisit it later.’

‘Oh. Good.’ He shivered again, and drew his arms close to his sides. ‘I’m cold. Can I have a cup of tea?’

‘Not yet, I’m afraid.’ Bond stood up and moved to his side. ‘We’ll see how you go. Medical gave me some blankets. They’re in the break room. Think you can make it there?’

He nodded.

‘Is one side better than the other?’ 

‘The right side is better.’

Bond moved to his right. He wrapped one firm hand around Q’s upper arm, and the other around his waist. ‘I’ve got you.’

Q pushed up, but his legs weren’t having it.

‘Try again,’ said Bond. 

This time he remained upright, but Bond still had to all but carry him out to the big black leather sofa in the break room. There was a pile of woollen blankets stacked on it, and a first aid box. 

Bond locked the door behind them and grabbed a chair. He positioned Q in front of the sofa, and the chair in front of Q, with its back to him. ‘We need to strip you off before you lie down. Hold onto that. Say if you think you’re going to fall.’ He popped the clasps on the first aid box and laid it open.

Bond’s fingers made short work of Q’s tie, then curled into the lapels of his jacket, easing it off his shoulders and down his arms, stopping when he gasped and stiffened.

‘Bit of bleeding back here,’ said Bond, peeling the jacket away. ‘Everything’s stuck to it.’

Q heard a packet open, and then Bond was dabbing something wet on his skin. His grubby white shirt came away, and he allowed Bond to undo the buttons and ease it off the way he had the jacket. When lifting his arms to get the vest off proved too painful, Bond took a pair of scissors from the kit and cut it up the front before Q could open his mouth to protest. He looked down at his bare chest and stomach, unsurprised that the ratio of dark blue, purple, and yellow skin was greater than his usual cadaverous pallor. There was a lump the size of a tennis ball on his left side. Just looking at it made it hurt.

He began to sink down to the sofa, but Bond caught his arm. ‘Trousers too.’

Even his worst nightmares had never featured a scenario like this. He began fumbling at his belt buckle.

‘It’s all right. I’ll do that.’ Bond’s hand took over.

His trousers hit the floor and he gingerly stepped out of them. A second later, he yelped as his boxers were pulled down to mid-thigh. He started to pull away, but the agent caught his elbow and made him face forward. Bond scrutinised his arse, cool fingers probing a black streak down the side of his hip, before taking a quick look at the front as well, firmly returning Q’s hands to the back of the chair when he tried to cover himself. Before he could form a coherent thought, both Bond and boxers were back where they belonged, and Q was staring at him in open-mouthed shock and mortification.

‘Jesus, you could warn me!’

Bond shrugged and gave what he probably thought was a mollifying grin. ‘Sorry. I had a feeling your sensibilities would be a bit delicate, so I thought it would be easier if you didn’t have time to think about it. It looks like a bit of debris hit you back there, or perhaps it happened when you fell. Nasty bruising, though. You can sit now.’ 

‘Bastard,’ he breathed, allowing Bond to lower him to the sofa. He could actually just die now. 

‘Just tell everyone it’s a spanking injury.’

‘Everyone? Who is this ‘everyone’ that’s going to be looking at my arse?’

‘Well, Medical, tomorrow, for instance.’ Bond’s gaze was unwavering. ‘Your girlfriend? Boyfriend?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Both?’

‘I don’t have a boyfriend, not that it’s any of your business.’

‘Quite so.’ 

‘I don’t have time for that,’ he said, defensively.

Bond smiled. ‘There’s always time for that.’

Q rolled his eyes. 

‘I promise you they’ve seen far worse in Medical,’ said Bond. He unfolded a piece of sterile paper from the kit and laid it on the sofa cushion so Q wouldn’t bleed everywhere, or get some kind of horrible infection left over from the Christmas party. He pulled on a pair of gloves, then took a big wad of gauze from the first aid box and pressed it to Q’s back. Q shut his eyes and tried not to make any noise.

When he opened them again, Bond was watching him. ‘I’d rather you let me know if it’s unbearable, than you end up on the floor.’

He nodded.

Bond discarded the gloves, then put one of the folded-up blankets over the low sofa armrest. He helped Q to lie flat, and spread a blanket over his lower half, then went over to the sink to briskly wash his hands, and rubbed them together.

‘What are you doing?’ said Q.

Bond returned and swung the chair round so that he was perching, though it felt more like looming, over Q. ‘Warming my hands for you.’

He regarded the agent warily. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Just relax, Q. I’ll try not to hurt you too much.’

‘Just so you know, telling someone you’re about to hurt them is not a good way to relax them.’

‘It is a good way to encourage compliance, however. Put your hands at your sides.’ When Q hesitated, he dropped the teasing tone and added, ‘I know you’re in pain, and I’ll be as gentle as I can.’ His hands encircled Q’s wrists like shackles, placing them where he wanted them. ‘Keep them there. You needn’t do anything, least of all worry about what I’m doing. If I need you to do something, I’ll tell you. For now, close your eyes and rest.’

It’s difficult at first. He has to force his eyes to stay closed, and his arms to stay where Bond has put them, when never in his life has he felt so vulnerable or so in need of being ready to defend himself. 

When Bond begins his examination, he is almost clinically solicitous, seemingly aware that Q is dealing with things that are far beyond his ability to cope with, both in processing the day’s events, and in submitting to what, to him, is an agonisingly intimate scrutiny as he teeters on the edge of something he can’t comprehend, and every instinct screams for him to hide until it passes.

The hand-rubbing was predictably useless, and he gets goosebumps every time Bond touches him, from the fingers pressed to his carotid artery, to the careful way the agent’s fingers move over his shoulders, chest, ribs, and stomach, and up and down his arms to his fingertips. As each painful place is explored in turn, Q tries to focus on it, to recall the details of how it came about and put together the missing pieces of the day. This was when he fell against the table. That was when someone swung a chair into his side. He’s never had a probably-broken rib or two before. He shudders, and Bond apologises.

Bond asks permission, then folds the blanket down a little lower and slides his fingertips into the waistband of his boxers to palpate his lower abdomen and hip bones, his touch utterly clinical and efficient, withdrawing before Q’s body has much chance to get its wires crossed. Unbelievably, it still does, a bit, but thank God, the blanket is strategically placed, and scrunched up enough to hide it.

Bond folds the blanket back to expose Q’s legs. He peels off his socks, gives his lower half the once over, and seems satisfied. He lifts the blanket so Q can move more easily, and slowly, painfully, he turns over. Sweat beads on his face.

‘How are you feeling?’ says Bond, though his expression signals his suspicions. He gets up and retrieves a rubbish bin, which he sets within reach, but out of Q’s eyeline.

‘Not great,’ is all he can manage now. 

‘Do you think you’ll be sick?’

‘No. I was, earlier.’

Bond gently pokes and prods his way back down from the top of Q’s head to the tips of his toes, before pulling on a new pair of gloves and opening numerous packets.

He closes his eyes as Bond sets about mopping up the bloody mess on his back. There seems to be a lot of it. He can feel the warm trickle down his left side when Bond carefully removes the gauze from before.

‘You awake?’ Bond says, quietly.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m going to stitch this up. It’s about five inches long. I’ll numb it first. Keep nice and still.’

Q gives a nod, and closes his eyes again. After the injection, he feels nothing but a dull tugging. That in itself is unpleasant enough, and he lets out a long breath when Bond tells him it’s done, wipes it all down with more antiseptic, and tapes a fresh bandage over it.

Bond dumps the rubbish into the bin, followed by the gloves

All the while this has been going on, he’s been fighting down the tightness building in his throat, the heat in his face, and suddenly a sob rips out of the depths of him, shocking in its violence and power, frightening in its implication of what’s beneath, and he covers his face with his hands, swearing. Further sobs follow in quick succession. When the formulation of words is possible he manages, ‘Can you get out, please.’

Bond’s hand is a comforting pressure between his shoulder blades. Q keeps his face turned to the back of the sofa.

‘No, Q, I’m staying right here.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you need a friend.’

This was not the line he was expecting from Bond. Ever. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Nothing to be sorry about. Perfectly natural response.’

Q shakes his head. ‘We’re trained for this. I’m trained for this. And here I am, falling apart like a…’

‘Like a victim of a terrorist attack,’ Bond finishes. ‘One who risked his life to save a child, engaged one of the suspects, then stood his ground when everyone else was trying to get as far away as possible, and got a proper battering in the process.’ He taps Q’s shoulder. ‘Look at me. This is important.’

He waits until Q complies, wiping tears and snot with the back of his hand, until Bond waves his hand away and cleans him up with a damp cloth.

‘Do you understand how brave you were today?’ Off Q’s expression, he goes on. ‘You can’t rationalise your way out of this. Your body and mind will react as evolution dictates, and no amount of training will entirely stop it. We might be able to cope better in that moment, but it’ll still take us down sooner or later.’

‘Does it happen to you?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do you do about it?’

The corner of Bond’s mouth twitches. ‘Usually, I just keep going.’

‘Until it takes you down.’

Bond actually huffs a laugh. ‘Yes.’

‘That doesn’t seem to be an option in my case,’ says Q. 

‘No, it isn’t,’ says Bond.

‘Please don’t tell anyone.’ He hates how weak that sounds.

‘You’ve nothing to be ashamed of. People here understand trauma better than most, and lots of them have been through it themselves. No one will think less of you. Quite the contrary.’

He shakes his head. ‘Still. I put Jenny there, and now she has to deal with it, too. For a cup of bloody coffee!’

Bond leans back in his chair. ‘Talk to her. She’s the only one who can take this burden from you, isn’t she? You won’t listen to me, or anyone else.’

His throat was closing up again. Another wave was building.

‘The truth, now,’ said Bond. ‘Why did you come back here? Why not go home?’

‘I couldn’t bring myself to go back outside with all the sirens and everything. I wanted to hole up away from everyone, but keep helping if I could, from my desk. Then I started feeling so bad, I didn’t think I could make it.’

Bond nodded. ‘And now?’ 

‘I just want to sleep. I want to go home.’

‘Ah, well, that may be more difficult. Medical said that if I judged you,’ he sighed, ‘fit, or fit enough, you didn’t have to come in straight away. However, they don’t want you leaving the building tonight, just in case you need them, and you have to report to them by oh seven hundred anyway, or you’ll be put on mandatory sick leave.’

Q closed his eyes and rode out another wave of heaving sobs that left him sore, drained, and exhausted.

‘You can also talk to me,’ says Bond.

‘The master of healthy coping mechanisms?’ Q flushed, wincing into the silence that followed. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You’re right, in that I have long experience of what happens when you fuck up your own recovery, and I don’t want that to happen to you. Perhaps Jenny would also be a good person to talk to, when you’re both ready. Maybe she’d like someone to talk to who was there, as well.’

He nods. ‘I would… I would like to talk to you too, though. If - if you wouldn’t mind.’ 

Bond’s expression softens. ‘Of course. We need you, Q.’

All dignity gone anyway, he forces out, ‘Do you?’

Bond gives him a long look. ‘I do.’

His eyes would not stay open. ‘Thank you. For helping me.’

Bond lays the blanket over Q’s back, and puts his hand back down to rest between his shoulder blades, a warm and welcome pressure there. 

Q closes his eyes, and this time he sleeps.


End file.
